I was wondering if you could give me your opion on a mini I was thinking of buying. Its an 2007 S with just under 3k miles on it. I am buying it from a used car dealership in NH. The car is a buy back car. I guess their was a problem with the auto tran. in manual mod and the dealership the car was bought at in florida couldnt figure out the problem. I guess bmw bought the car back from the customer and shipped the car to south carolina to be repaired. It was all fixed and this dealship bought the car from bmw along with 2 other buy backs (all three came from the same dealership in florida).

Is this comon and are the cars safe to buy or are they lemons? Or could it just be the dealership in florida does not have good techs and after tryn to be repaired several time the lemon law kicked in? The vin is WMWMF73587TL89637

 

Well, buying a "buy back" doesn't sound like a good idea. I'd look a bit more.

 

Make sure that the buy back does not appear any where on the title. Also ask to see a carfax. If that or the title says it was a buy back (lemon) I would guess that the value would be greatly reduced.

 

Sounds scary. What kind of pricing difference between it and a new '08?

Be careful! Have proof of the repairs (Carfax?) and is MINI covering the remaining 47k miles in warranty?

 

Dont buy a buy back at all :(

 

Buy back is just a nicer word for LEMON.. I had an Alero with water damage from water coming in from the Firewall and to you, you would not even know until it rained and the car was dead to the world. Buy backs are no good

 

after reading other ppl comment...u should not buy it

 

Buy back or not, I don't know this auto dealer in NH, but the 4 used Minis I looked at in my region were actually priced equal to or higher than ordering a new one. The first time I encountered this, I asked the salesman if he new that the price was equal to a new one. He said, "Well, that's what we're asking for." I said, "Gotta go," and after seeing silly trend, ordered a new one. I shopped the dealers hard for new, beginning with 12 dealers in my state and narrowing down to 4 for best and final. I saved some money.

 

Same here... I worked five dealers, all with the same base price, but with lots of variation in option pricing, fees, etc. I ended up with a dealer two hours from me, but I can get her serviced at a dealer an hour away.

One can always go the certified pre-owned route ... I'd feel a lot better there if I was buying a used MINI.

 

"Buy back or not, I don't know this auto dealer in NH, but the 4 used Minis I looked at in my region were actually priced equal to or higher than ordering a new one. The first time I encountered this, I asked the salesman if he new that the price was equal to a new one. He said, "Well, that's what we're asking for." I said, "Gotta go," and after seeing silly trend, ordered a new one. I shopped the dealers hard for new, beginning with 12 dealers in my state and narrowing down to 4 for best and final. I saved some money."


I think a lot of people notice this. Most of the time, the "equally" priced used late-model MINIs are ones with the MINI Next 6 years or 100,000 miles warranty. So the used buyers actually get something that new buyers don't get in the Worry Free department.

That said, I still can't understand why folks buy used MCSs for $27-28k (non-JCW) when they could probably configure a new one exactly the way they want it (unless $3k wheels are your thing) for a lower price.